LIA, Discover Long Island call against offshore oil and gas drilling

By: Adina Genn January 11, 2018Comments Off on LIA, Discover Long Island call against offshore oil and gas drilling

The Long Island Association and Discover Long Island are voicing opposition against the Trump Administration’s plan to permit oil and gas drilling off the East Coast.

In a letter to President Donald Trump on Jan. 10, the two organizations say that the “implementation of this proposal would considerably damage our environment and our economy.”

The Trump administration moved last week to vastly expand offshore drilling from the Atlantic to the Arctic oceans with a five-years plan that would open up federal waters off California for the first time in more than three decades.

The new five-year drilling plan also could open new areas of oil and gas exploration in areas off the East Coast, where drilling has been blocked for decades. While some lawmakers in those states support offshore drilling, the plan drew immediate opposition from governors up and down the East Coast, including Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

And stating his opposition, Rep. Lee Zeldin, said in a statement that “I support an energy strategy that secures American energy independence and drives down costs. On Long Island, however, our waterways are our way of life, and drilling off of Long Island is unacceptable and counterproductive to the well-being of our communities.”

In addition, U.S. Senators Charles Schumer, Kirsten Gillibrand, and 34 Senate colleagues sent a letter to Interior Secretary Zinke on Jan. 9, stating that the proposal “is an ill-advised effort to circumvent public and scientific input, and we object to sacrificing public trust, community safety, and economic security for the interests of the oil industry. We urge you to abandon this effort and maintain the protections outlined in the current 2017-2022 plan.”

Protesting the proposal, Kevin Law, the LIA’s president and CEO and Kristen Jarnagin, Discover Long Island’s president and CEO, point out that “Long Island’s $5.6 billion tourism industry supports more than 9 million visitors annually and 100,000 local jobs. While we appreciate your interest in expanding the country’s energy resources and competitiveness, it should not be achieved at the expense of undermining the pillars of our region’s economic strength.”

They also note in the letter that Zinke, after meeting with Gov. Rick Scott, would not permit drilling near Florida’s waters and had stated that he backed Scott’s position that Florida is “unique and its coasts are heavily reliant on tourism as an economic driver.”

“As true as that is for Florida, it is certainly true as well for Long Island,” Law and Jarnagin note in the letter.